Monthly ArchivesMay 2022

Are you an ecommerce business owner and want to keep pace with emerging ecommerce trends? Or maybe you’re about to start your ecommerce journey and you’re looking for some guidance.

Fortunately, there are tons of people willing to share their experience, advice, and walk you through how to start an ecommerce business. And a lot of these ecommerce experts are sharing their advice on podcasts.

Learn from their mistakes and their successes with this list of the best ecommerce podcasts in 2022.

There’s A Podcast For Everything!

If you are still unfamiliar with podcasting, it’s time to change your perspective.

Over half of Americans have listened to a podcast at least once, and around 40% listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. And podcast listenership is growing. Monthly podcast listeners have grown by 61% in the US in the past three years.

It’s not exaggerating to say that there is a podcast for everything you can think of. News, interviews, educational series — you can find all types of content readily available to you. And yes, ecommerce has found its way into the world of podcasting as well.

Ecommerce podcasts are one of the best ways to learn from the ecommerce experts as they share valuable insight to the world of online sales. You can learn how the world’s ecommerce leaders approach building business processes and marketing strategies, and apply all the advice given to ensure the prosperity of your online business. Podcasts are arguably the best source of information to discover industry trends to stay ahead of your competitors at all times.

You can listen to podcasts from different platforms, including Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or CastBox, among many others.

Let’s dive into the world of ecommerce podcasting and discover how the best ecommerce podcasts can help you take your business on a whole new level.

7 Best Ecommerce Podcasts of 2022

In no particular order, here are the best ecommerce podcasts to listen to this year.

1. EcommerceFuel

The EcommerceFuel podcast is hosted by Andrew Youderian, an experienced ecommerce entrepreneur. The podcast earned its popularity as Andrew sought to build the world’s largest community for ecommerce business owners to help them grow their customer base and provide valuable insight into industry trends.

Most of the time Andrew invites the industry experts to join him in the podcast episodes to discuss the best strategies to grow an ecommerce business and avoid mistakes, all advice given from their experience.

Who is the Podcast For?

EcommerceFuel is perfect for all categories of business owners, both newcomers and advanced entrepreneurs.

Popular Episodes of EcommerceFuel

2. Store Builders

The Store Builders Podcast, hosted by the ecommerce expert Chris Lema who has been in the industry for over two decades, focuses on providing top-notch advice for expanding your online business. Using the experience of the ecommerce leaders, Store Builders features insights into online retail trends and best practices, making it one of the best podcasts on all things ecommerce. Most episodes last around 20 minutes to keep it as informative and comprehensible as possible.

Who is the Podcast For?

The Store Builders podcast focuses on taking your business to the next level, including increasing your ecommerce customer base, which is a burning question for all ecommerce business owners regardless of their level of experience.

Popular Episodes of Store Builders

3. My Wife Quit Her Job

The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, as its name implies, follows the story of the host Steve Chou ‘s wife’s progress as an ecommerce entrepreneur since she quit her job to build her own business. They operate a business together and provide comprehensive guidance on everything you need to know to get started in the ecommerce world, including the challenges that you encounter along the way. This podcast follows the couple’s experience and was originally created to inspire corporate workers who have always dreamed of starting their own business to be brave enough to finally give it a try.

Who is the Podcast For?

While My Wife Quit Her Job is ideal for beginners to the ecommerce world, all the information in the podcast can be useful for business owners at all levels.

Popular Episodes of My Wife Quit Her Job

4. The Fizzle Show

The Fizzle Show podcast has been in ecommerce podcasting since 2013. Originally created by four hosts, until this day the podcast is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs meet the challenges of the ecommerce world. Not all podcast episodes are about ecommerce, but all the insights provided from other online businesses can be applied universally. Most episodes are created in the form of an interview with a successful entrepreneur where they cover everything you need to know about customer base growth, marketing campaigns, and creating a personal brand.

Who is the Podcast For?

The Fizzle Show is perfect for those who would like to listen to advice from successful business owners as they uncover all the best strategies for growing your online business. The podcast episodes are not necessarily focused on ecommerce, which makes it a great source of general business advice.

Popular Episodes of The Fizzle Show

5. Ecommerce Influence

The Ecommerce Influence podcast, hosted by Austin Brawner, helps business owners build wealth and change their perspective on building a business for its long-standing purpose. New podcast episodes are available twice a week, most of the time featuring interviews with ecommerce experts. You can expect to hear advice on all aspects of building a successful ecommerce business, including how to avoid burnout and take care of your mental health while meeting all challenges of the business world.

Who is the Podcast For?

Ecommerce Influence covers a wide range of topics, which makes it one of the best ecommerce podcasts for anyone in the industry, from newcomers to experienced entrepreneurs.

Popular Episodes of Ecommerce Influence

6. Ecommerce Masterplan

Hosted by Chloe Thomas, the Ecommerce Masterplan podcast features weekly interviews with ecommerce industry leaders who share their insights into successful online sales. Ecommerce Masterplan will teach you all the best practices on how to acquire more customers, and improve customer retention.

Who is the Podcast For?

The Ecommerce Masterplan podcast is ideal for all levels, from newcomers to the ecommerce experts, as the guests invited provide their advice on operating an ecommerce business.

Popular Episodes of Ecommerce Masterplan

7. 2X Ecommerce

The 2X Ecommerce podcast is hosted by Kunle Campbell, who is an ecommerce growth advisor. The podcast’s main goal is to provide its listeners with a comprehensive guide on how to scale your ecommerce business. 2X Ecommerce features a series of interviews with world-class entrepreneurs who share their stories that will help you increase order values, customer base, traffic, and in the long term, grow your business by 2X.

Who is the Podcast For?

2X Ecommerce is a great ecommerce podcast for online sales professionals looking to grow quickly in today’s saturated market.

Popular Episodes of 2X Ecommerce

Now You Know

Podcasts are a fantastic form of digital media that is aimed at helping you absorb information in new ways. Ecommerce podcasts are undoubtedly one of the best sources of world-class online sales content that will ensure you are up-to-speed with all the best trends and expert strategies of the ecommerce world.

We hope now you have added a few podcasts to your list to check out in your free time. Discovering something new everyday is what we are absolutely for at Hostdedi. But sharing it with you is what we love most!

Love What You’re Hearing? Get Started With Ecommerce at Hostdedi

Take what you’re learning in ecommerce podcasts and get started with your own online store. Hostdedi makes it easy with StoreBuilder. It’s the fastest and easiest way to build an online store with WordPress.

You can get an online store up and running quickly — with no coding or design skills required. Check out StoreBuilder to get started today.

WordPress remains one of the most popular content management systems in the world, with over 30% of all websites taking advantage of the codeless website building it offers.

It’s not surprising why so many use WordPress — its core functionality features a wide range of tools that allow you to build a great website. Add to that plugins and themes, which extend the possibilities even more.

What is a plugin for WordPress? This is something that is often not clear to someone who is new to the platform. In this article we will answer that question and walk you through the process of finding the right plugins and getting them installed on your website.

What is a Plugin for WordPress?

A plugin for WordPress is a piece of software that extends the functionality of a WordPress website. Plugins make WordPress websites highly customizable. There is a plugin for just about anything you want on your website.

WordPress is open source. As an open source project, it is supported by a devoted community of individual software developers and entire companies. The WordPress community works on making it an even greater platform.

Because the WordPress ecosystem is so robust, there are many plugins to choose from. With more than 60 thousand plugins available, any website owner can achieve just about anything without having to write a single line of code.

And if you do know how to code, you can edit or create your own plugins. Powered by the PHP programming language, anyone who is familiar enough with software development can create their own plugins and themes.

Where Do I Find WordPress Plugins?

You might be wondering where you can find WordPress plugins and learn what they offer.

WordPress.org has gathered thousands of plugins for your WordPress website, all divided into categories. You will find all kinds of lists providing you with the best plugins in the chosen group.

There you can also read plugin descriptions and reviews from real WordPress website owners who have already tested the function of certain plugins, which will help you choose what you need.

Are WordPress Plugins Free to Use?

There are thousands of free WordPress plugins. There are also many paid plugins, which are sometimes called premium plugins. Some free plugins also include paid options with extended functionalities.

Although WordPress remains an open source platform, many powerful and trusted software companies are behind widely-used plugins. You may need to purchase paid plans to unlock premium features of popular plugins.

15 Examples of Plugins

They say there is a plugin for everything, and it couldn’t be more true. There are tons of WordPress plugins available — to the point where it can be overwhelming for WordPress beginners.

You may be wondering, how would I know which plugins to install? Reviews from WordPress users can certainly help. Recommendations do too. Below, we’ll also walk through some examples of plugins that are top-rated and highly recommended.

We gathered five essential plugin categories and the best plugins to use in each one. Having reviewed what they can offer, you can be sure you will know exactly how to use WordPress plugins to your advantage.

Page Builders

WordPress provides its standard editor to help you create new posts and blog pages, but it does not come with much freedom and flexibility. WordPress page builders make it easier than ever to customize your website pages without any programming skills. Most page builders provide great building elements like buttons, galleries, and text areas that you can assemble by drag and drop.

Top 3 WordPress Page Builders:

Performance Plugins

The loading speed of your website is a key factor when it comes to attracting visitors and increasing your customer base. Everything you have to offer to your customers should be easily accessible to them in a matter of seconds. In today’s busy world, nobody waits for a website to load. That’s where WordPress performance plugins can help you speed up your website.

Top 3 WordPress Performance Plugins:

Security Plugins

Security is one of the most important aspects of hosting your WordPress website in the global network. Unfortunately, as WordPress has become so popular, websites powered by it are often targeted by hackers. Security plugins are developed to defend your website against cyberattacks of all kinds.

Top 3 WordPress Security Plugins:

Ecommerce Plugins

Did you know that WordPress is powerful enough to turn your website into an online store? Now you do. By using WordPress with WooCommerce, or another ecommerce plugin, you can become a new big name in the world of online shopping. Ecommerce plugins make it easy for you to build your store while taking care of all technical aspects.

Top 3 WordPress Ecommerce Plugins:

Search Engine Optimization Plugins

Search engines are a major source of traffic for all websites. Studies have shown that around 75% of people never scroll past the first page of Google, so it’s best if your website is there for your potential customers to find. Search engine optimization plugins can help you rank higher, drive more traffic to your website, and grow your business in the long term.

Top 3 WordPress SEO Plugins:

How to Use WordPress Plugins: From Installation to Activation

As we have learned, plugins act as WordPress extensions adding new functionality to WordPress websites. Every plugin has a list of features it provides, along with clear instructions on how to make a plugin work for your website. Below, we’ll walk through how to use WordPress plugins.

Once you have created your new WordPress website, you will get access to the WordPress dashboard, the so-called wp-admin area. As the name implies, you can manage your blog from there, including getting new posts added, and installing new WordPress plugins.

1. Log Into Your WordPress Dashboard

The first thing you need to do is log in to your WordPress dashboard, or WordPress admin area. Typically you can do it by going to your-website.com/wp-admin/ in a browser. There are plugins that allow you to move your WordPress Admin to another place to protect you from hackers. This is a great feature, but for now let’s focus on how to get our first plugin installed.

2. Choose the Plugins Tab From the Left Menu and Click “Add New”

This will take you to the list of currently installed plugins. From there you can manage your plugins — install and activate new ones, as well as deactivate and remove existing plugins. After you click Add New, you will be taken to the plugin catalog where you will be able to search for certain plugins or choose one from the categories provided.

3. Choose a Plugin

The Add Plugins menu presents you with a catalog that you can browse to choose what plugins you would like to install. It is hard not to get lost in the wide variety of plugins available to you, so you can make use of the categories provided that include the most popular plugins and plugins recommended to you. If you have marked any plugins as favorites on WordPress.org, they will appear under Favorites.

If you chose a plugin beforehand and know exactly what you need to install, you can use the search box on the right to search by the plugin name, keywords, tag, or author. If you scroll down, you will see the list of most popular tags that can also help you find what you are looking for.

4. Install the Plugin

Once you have chosen what plugin you would like to install, click Install Now, and WordPress will fetch the plugin and install it on your website, easy as that.

If you would like to see more information before installing a plugin, you can click on its name. You will see a page containing the plugin description, including when the plugin was last updated, what WordPress versions it is compatible with, the number of installations, and plugin reviews.

5. Activate the Plugin

After you install a new plugin, all its information will be saved to your website, but unless we activate it, WordPress will not be able to make it work. To activate a plugin, click on Activate once the installation is complete.

You can activate, deactivate, or remove the plugins you installed from the plugin tab. Think of deactivation as temporary removal. A plugin will not be active, but you will be able to activate it back at any time. If you delete a plugin entirely, you will need to install it again to be able to use it.

Now You Know

So, what is a plugin for WordPress? Plugins are amazing WordPress extensions that can do wonders.

We hope that now you have a clear understanding of how you can power your WordPress website with plugins. WordPress has a lot to offer, and you are going to see it once you start getting familiar with the platform.

Power Your WordPress Site With Fully Managed Hosting from Hostdedi

To get your website online, you’ll need a host. A fully managed WordPress host like Hostdedi can help.

Managed hosting takes all the weight off your shoulders when it comes to the technical aspects of a website. A team of professionals with years of experience take care of everything on the server for your website to work seamlessly — and at a high speed.

Our fully managed WordPress hosting plans are optimized for the platform — making website hosting headache free for you. We have included all the best solutions from the world of WordPress to make your website faster and more secure. Our web hosting experts are there for you to answer all questions and address any technical issues that may arise 24/7/365.

Check out our Managed WordPress Hosting plans to start today.

From the standpoint of SEO, it is extremely important to configure the Magento 2 robots.txt file for your website. A robots.txt file specifies which pages of a website should be indexed and analyzed by web crawlers. The robots.txt file plays a big role in SEO.

SEO is about sending the right signals to search engines — and robots.txt for Magento 2 is one of the best ways to communicate your crawling preferences to search engines.

What is Robots.txt?

Basically, robots.txt files tell search engine crawlers which URLs on your site they can access. This is mostly for preventing overloading your site with requests. Robots.txt files are mainly intended to manage the activities of good bots, since bad bots aren’t likely to follow the instructions. To keep a web page out of crawls, block it with noindex or password-protect the page or website.

Why is Robots.txt Important?

In addition to helping you divert search engine crawlers away from the less important pages on your site, robots.txt for Magento 2 can also provide the following benefits.

• This can help prevent the appearance of duplicate content. Sometimes your website might require more than one copy of a piece of content. For example, if you create a printable version of a piece of content, you may have two different versions. Google has a well-known duplicate content penalty. This would allow you to avoid that.
• Using Magento 2 robots.txt, you can hide pages in development from being indexed before they are ready.
• Also, there may be pages on your website that you do not want the public to see — for example, you might have added only a simple product. Another example would be a thank you page after someone has made a purchase or registered. These pages should not appear on a search engine, making it pointless for Google or other search engines to index them.

How to Configure Robots.txt for Magento 2

Please follow the below steps to configure your robots.txt file in Magento 2.

Step 1: Log in to your Admin Panel.

Step 2: Go to Content > Design> Configuration.

Step 3: In the opened grid, find the line Global, click the Edit link, and open the Search Engine Robots tab.

Step 4: Now choose what Default Robots you need from the following:

• INDEX, FOLLOW: Search engines will regularly index your pages and check the changes.
• NOINDEX, FOLLOW: The search engine bot won’t index your website but it’ll still monitor changes.
• INDEX, NOFOLLOW: Search bot will index your store once but never come back to track the changes.
• NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW: This setting will hide your store from search engine bots.

Step 5:  The Edit custom instruction of the robots.txt File line allows you to write custom instructions. To reset the default settings, click the Reset To Default button, which will remove all your customized instructions

Step 6: Click on Save Configuration to apply the changes.

Magento 2 Robots.txt Custom Instructions Examples

As we mentioned above, you can define custom instructions to the Magento 2 robot.txt configurations. Here are some examples:

Allow Full Access

User-agent:*

Disallow:

Disallow Access to All Folders

User-agent:*

Disallow: /

Block Google Bot From a Folder

User-agent: Googlebot

Disallow: /subfolder/

Block Google Bot From a Page

User-agent: Googlebot

Disallow: /subfolder/page-url.html

Default Instructions

Disallow: /lib/

Disallow: /pkginfo/

Disallow: /report/

Disallow: /var/

Disallow: /catalog/

Disallow: /customer/

Disallow: /review/

Disallow: /*.php$

Restrict Checkout Pages and User Accounts

Disallow: /checkout/

Disallow: /onestepcheckout/

Disallow: /customer/

Disallow: /customer/account/

Disallow: /customer/account/login/

Restrict Catalog Search Pages

Disallow: /catalogsearch/

Disallow: /catalog/product_compare/

Disallow: /catalog/category/view/

Disallow: /catalog/product/view/

Disallow Duplicate Content

Disallow: /tag/

Disallow: /review/

How to Add Sitemap to Robots.txt file in Magento 2

A sitemap is an XML file which contains a list of all of the webpages on your site as well as metadata (metadata being information that relates to each URL). In the same way as a robots.txt file works, a sitemap allows search engines to crawl through an index of all the webpages on your site in one place.

To enable Submission to Robots.txt in Magento 2, you need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Log in to your Admin Panel.

Step 2. Go to Stores > Settings > Configuration and choose XML Sitemap in the Catalog tab.

3. Open the Search Engine Submission Settings tab and set Yes in the Enable Submission to Robots.txt dropdown.

4. Click on the Save Config button.

If you would like this option to be enabled automatically, navigate to Content > Design > Configuration > Search Engine Robots, and in the Edit custom instruction of the robot.txt File field, set the instructions to add the sitemap as follows:

Sitemap: https://magefan.com/pub/sitemaps/sitemap.xml

Sitemap: https://magefan.com/pub/sitemaps/blog_sitemap.xml

Sitemap: https://magefan.com/pub/sitemaps/sitemap_ua.xml

Sitemap: https://magefan.com/pub/sitemaps/blog_sitemap_ua.xml

It will be easier for search engines if you have a robots.txt file that specifies the latest sitemap instead of crawling every page of the site then finding them days later. If your site is not performing well and the web pages are not indexed correctly, your position within the search engine results is compromised. For the performance of your site, it is also very important to keep the website optimized and this Magento 2 speed optimization article can further help.

Now You Know

Now you know how to create Magento 2 Robots.txt for your website.

If you’re on Magento, consider fully managed Magento hosting from Hostdedi. Our plans include Varnish, PHP 7+, an integrated CDN, and image compression for top-tier performance.

Take advantage of our complimentary free Magento site migrations and switch to Hostdedi today.

Explore our fully managed Magento plans to get started.

WordPress widgets are one of the most useful tools WordPress provides. The process of adding widgets to your website is highly intuitive and does not require any code knowledge. The codeless website building that WordPress offers is one of the main reasons why millions of website owners continue to give preference to the platform.

In this article we’ll list the best WordPress widgets. We’ll also cover how to add a widget in WordPress, and we’ll review any potential issues you may encounter in a step-by-step manner.

What is a WordPress Widget?

A WordPress widget is an element that allows you to add specific content to your website. They can be placed to certain areas of your website outside the body of a post. Widgets allow you to add extra content to your website to encourage your visitors to get information or take action.

These elements are so common that you probably have seen them a million times visiting different blogs. Recent post lists, shopping carts, search bars — these are just some of the examples of what you can place on your WordPress website with the help of widgets.

Where Can I Place WordPress Widgets?

Widgets are usually placed in special content areas such as headers, sidebars, or footers. The list of areas you can choose to add a widget to can differ depending on the WordPress theme you are using. Generally, you can put a widget almost anywhere. You can also choose if you want widgets to appear on every page of your website or specific pages only.

You will find that some types of widgets are better off placed in the sidebar for your visitors to notice them easily, while others can be placed in the footer, such as a social media feed.

How Many Widgets Are Available to Me?

WordPress comes with a list of default widgets, but the choice may be limited. To get more customized widgets, you can install different plugins — there are a lot of them to make use of. Some unique widgets specific to your WordPress theme of choice may also be available to you.

5 Best WordPress Widgets

We can add amazing new functionality to our website with the help of widgets. Below you’ll find the five best WordPress widget plugins to leverage.

1. SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle

Siteorigin Widgets Bundle provides a number of useful widgets, currently 22 different types of them. You will find widgets for Google Maps, pricing tables, image sliders, contact forms, buttons of all kinds, and more. All widgets are fully customizable, with support for endless colors and more than 1500 icons.

2. Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails

WordPress comes with the recent posts widget by default, but it does not provide any additional features. As the name of the plugin implies, Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails takes the widget to a new level, allowing you to display recent posts with thumbnails. It means that now you can list the most recent posts with post titles, authors, categories, dates, and more.

3. The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar is another plugin that provides a good alternative to one of the default widgets WordPress provides — the calendar widget. The set of widgets The Events Calendar features can be useful If you want to alert your users about upcoming events and important dates.

4. Relevanssi – A Better Search

The Relevanssi plugin was created to replace the standard WordPress search widget with a better solution that includes more features and configurable options. For example, you can choose for search results to be displayed by relevance rather than just by date.

5. Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress

WPForms is a drag and drop WordPress form builder that you can use to create custom forms of all kinds in a matter of minutes. The plugin allows you to create a new one from scratch or choose from a range of pre-built templates.

How to Add a Widget in WordPress

Now that we have learned what the best WordPress widgets are and what types of them we can find, let’s review the steps we need to take to add a widget to our website.

The process of adding a new widget to your website used to be very different from what we can see now. When the 5.8 version was released in July 2021, the widgets screen that many WordPress users had been using for a long time was gone. All newer versions of WordPress present the new widgets menu that does not look like what we saw before.

This article focuses on getting widgets added using the new approach, so if you are still using any WordPress versions below 5.8, the steps below may not be helpful. With every new WordPress version released, we are getting new features presented and all vulnerabilities of the previous versions addressed, and that’s why we strongly recommend getting your installation updated to the latest version as soon as possible.

With that said, let’s walk through how to add widgets in WordPress.

1. Log Into Your WordPress Dashboard

Adding a widget to a website requires access to the WordPress admin area. You can open your WordPress dashboard by opening your-website.com/wp-admin/ in any browser.

2. Choose the Appearance Tab From the Left Menu and Click Widgets

It will take you to the new widgets screen that first appeared when WordPress 5.8 was introduced. On the right side of the screen, you can see the list of areas you will be able to add a widget to.

If you had experience working with any older WordPress versions, it may take you some time to get used to the new layout. With new features presented, you can now add pretty much any block of content to your website widget areas, not just widgets.

To illustrate what we have discussed at the beginning of this article, let’s take a look at the two screenshots below. In the first one, you can see just one widget area defined — Footer. This is what you will see if you have the Twenty Twenty-One WordPress theme activated.

Here we are using another popular theme, GeneratePress. You can see that now we have 11 areas available for us to add new widgets to. Different WordPress themes define a different number of widget areas.

3. Click On the Chosen Widget Area

Once you click on the area we would like to add a widget to, you will see a real-time preview of the added widgets. From here you will be able to add all kinds of widgets and modify them to create your unique style. If you have a new WordPress installation you have not yet started working with, you may see that there are some standard elements already added to certain widget areas.

4. Click on the Plus Button Next to Widgets

After you click on the plus button in the top left corner, you will see a long menu presenting all types of widgets and other elements available to add to the chosen widget area. If you scroll down to the widgets, you’ll see all the default ones that can be used. If you installed any plugins that provide additional widgets, you will see all of them in the menu.

5. Add the Chosen WordPress Widget

You can scroll through the elements to choose one that you would like to add or use the search bar to find what you are looking for. Once you have chosen what widget you will place on your website, you can simply click on it, and it will appear in the selected widget area. You can also drag and drop the element to put it exactly where you need it to be. In the example below, we have added the default calendar widget to our right sidebar.

Now we know how to add a widget to WordPress websites — it’s easy and intuitive.

How to Edit WordPress Widgets

It is important to understand how to edit WordPress widgets in case you would like to change their order or the way they are displayed on the website.

We can edit all WordPress widgets we have added from the same screen. All we need to do is click on the widget we added and make use of the editing features available. If you installed some new widgets to extend the list of the default ones, editing them will be possible from the interface of the plugin that provided a certain widget.

Let’s take a look at the screenshot below. We have installed two popular widget plugins, WPForms and WP Call Button, and added the widgets they provide to our right sidebar.

We can edit the default search bar we added before. For example, we can change the button type and its position. We can also change the positions of widgets and their sequence. If we want to change the way the contact form and the Call Us button look, we would need to do so from the plugins menus before having these widgets added to the sidebar again. We typically can not edit custom widgets from the WordPress widgets screen.

What to Do if Your WordPress Widget is Not Showing

Sometimes the process of adding widgets does not go smoothly. Having added new cool widgets to your website and being ready to present them to your visitors, you may notice that it is not showing where it needs to be. Let’s review some of the most common reasons for WordPress widgets not showing.

Reason 1: You Have Not Saved the Changes

When you add new widgets to any area of your website from the widgets screen, changes do not get saved automatically for you. You need to click Update to make changes to the live website.

How to solve: Simply get in the habit of saving all changes you make to the website every step of the way. You will need to add the widgets you wanted again and make sure you do not leave any unsaved changes before leaving the widgets screen.

Reason 2: You Have Some Incompatible Plugins and/or Themes

Every WordPress plugin or theme is essentially blocks of code written by its developer. Sometimes some pieces of code can conflict with each other, or some plugins can be incompatible with the PHP version you are using. Your widgets may not be displayed on the website at all or they may be displayed incorrectly if there are incompatibility issues.

How to solve: Plugin incompatibility is not easy to address. You can try deactivating plugins one by one to see which ones are causing issues, but it’s best if you contact a WordPress professional, for example, your hosting technical support.

Reason 3: Your WordPress Installation Has Suffered a Failed Update

Failed updates lead to WordPress core files being saved incorrectly — or some of them may even be missing afterwards.

How to solve: We recommend backing up your WordPress website before making any major changes, and that includes WordPress version updates. You can restore your website from a backup to a functional condition. But without knowing why the update did not go well in the first place, we can not really consider the issue solved.

Generally, we need to try to understand when the elements were last seen working correctly and what changes might have been made to the website that led to the WordPress widgets not showing.

Knowing what happened — and when it did and how — will help us find the right solution and get the issue addressed quickly. Unfortunately, all websites can be prone to technical issues of different kinds, and there is no one universal solution.

Now You Know

Now you know how to add a widget in WordPress admin, along with some of the best WordPress widgets available. Widgets are an amazing solution for your website, and no matter what content you’re hosting, you can pretty much add anything you can think of.

Power Your WordPress Site With Fully Managed Hosting

Getting familiar with modern platforms takes time and effort. And it’s not enough to just create something amazing — you need to make sure it stays available at all times, secured from various attacks, and backed up regularly. It is not easy to take care of all that yourself.

That’s where fully managed hosting comes in. Fully managed hosting means you don’t have to worry about that — your website is in the hands of hosting experts.

Try Fully Managed WordPress Hosting from Hostdedi

Hostdedi takes pride in providing top tier fully managed WordPress hosting. All Hostdedi WordPress hosting plans come pre-packaged with the best solutions from the world of WordPress.

Security, performance, scalability, and flexibility are just some of the advantages of the WordPress hosting we provide. Plus, we help you every step of the way, making hosting enjoyable and headache free for you.

Check out our Managed WordPress Hosting plans to start today.

Video has turned into one of the breakout trends in marketing for the past decade. Considering an average user spends approximately 100 minutes per day watching online videos, we’re talking about the most popular choice for content consumption these days.

However, watching videos isn’t just about entertainment. You can also use videos for sales to increase the revenue of your online business.

With that in mind, let’s go over what you need to know about using video to increase sales.

How Does Video Content Help Businesses?

Implementing ecommerce video content into your overall marketing strategy can help by:

Building Trust

Building trust with customers will encourage them to be more ready to commit to the services and products you offer. Trust is one of the key driving forces for almost every purchasing decision a buyer faces, no matter what item they’re looking for.

It’s also how people distinguish their favorite brand from other companies offering similar products and services.

Boosting Sales and Conversions

Adding a product video to a landing page can help you increase conversions. In simple terms, conversion is a point where the user responds to your call to action (CTA).

Wyzowl showed that over 70% of users who watched an explainer video about a specific service or product ended up buying it. When you think about it, these statics are not even that surprising — vision is our most dominant sense and how we transmit most information to our brain.

Improving Return on Investment (ROI)

More than 80% of businesses say that video has an excellent ROI. Video production is not the cheapest nor the easiest task, but it pays off long-term. Also, online video editing tools are becoming more affordable and are improving all the time.

The videos you make don’t have to be perfect because the content is what matters. Research backs that up, showing that users didn’t find a poor design or low quality important. They were mainly put off by material that doesn’t explain the service or product well enough, which means you can make decent videos with your smartphone alone.

Complementing Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts

Video content helps you increase the time visitors spend on your website. While longer exposure positively affects trust, it also signals to search engines your website has helpful content users can benefit from.

You can optimize YouTube videos for SEO by adding keywords to the video title and description, tags, and links that lead back to your site, services, and products.

Appealing to Smartphone Users

90% of users watch videos on their smartphones. Google supports that idea, showing three in four people prefer watching YouTube videos on their phones. Since the number of mobile users is increasing and consumers prefer to watch videos on the go, your potential audience will continue to get bigger and bigger.

Now that you know the benefits of video let’s see the different ways you can start incorporating videos to increase sales.

Product Videos

Product videos explain and visually exhibit a specific product and its benefits.

To make a good product video, make sure it contains the following elements:

• A meaningful narration paired with engaging dialogue.
• An adequate length — your video needs to be short enough to keep the user’s attention and long enough to explain the product and its benefits in detail.
• A professional tone and approach — you don’t want your video to be “stuffy.”
• Relatability and empathy.

There are different types of product videos you can create:

Teaser/Promos

Most TV commercials and other advertisements promoting products are usually teasers. They tap into the viewers’ emotions to affect their perception of prestige, wealth, beauty, or other elements they want to target.

For instance, take a look at chocolate commercials. They show you the process of raw chocolate swirling, pouring, and eventually mixing with the rest of the tasty ingredients, after which you get a perfect final product someone is thrilled to eat.

Another good example is videos for perfumes that create extra dimension with magical lightning and charming people looking grandiose.

All in all, teaser videos are both the top and the bottom of the funnel. You’ll leave new customers mesmerized, intrigued, and wanting more, while loyal customers will feel like they’re part of the magic and continue purchasing your products.

Explainers

Explainer videos tell buyers what’s behind your product. Such videos tend to showcase the product in its best light and explain what problem it solves. They’re mostly something a customer can find halfway down the marketing funnel after they have already become aware of the product and are now at the consideration stage.

Compared to a teaser, an explainer video gives more information about your product. It reels the buyer in by relating to their needs and present problems. These videos are not that much about glamour but practicality.

Demo or ‘How-To’ Video

A demo product video tells people how a product works, shows the details, and eventually convinces them to buy it. At times, this type of video will be something customers at the top of the funnel need to be drawn in. However, demos mostly go step by step, explaining how to use the service or product to solve a specific problem.

These videos must be well-narrated as well as cover helpful details. For instance, SaaS product companies often find demo product videos useful because they can show how to use software features to achieve specific goals.

Marketing Videos

Now let’s go over how to use video for sales in marketing. Here we’ll talk about the different types of video content companies use to promote their services, products, and, above all, values.

Video Ads

Commercials or video ads are the type people are most familiar with. Ads are overtly promotional and designed to sell something to people — even if that something we’re talking about is the image of your company.

They are often short. Although a good ad can accomplish the set goal in less than one minute, 30 seconds is the perfect length most video ads fall into on the internet. The most successful video ads are based on a narrative that makes them memorable and helps people identify with the story.

Video ads are an essential part of pay-per-click (PPC) strategies. They can make your clickable ads way more compelling to target audiences and boost your ROI. As for marketing goals, a good commercial can improve brand awareness and draw attention to your business. Video ads are also something you can do to funnel users into your lead generation landing pages.

Employees/Company Showcase

What’s a business without the people in the background creating its magic? Company story videos are a great way to show who’s standing behind your brand.

These videos humanize companies, which audiences crave, especially in the modern age of instant communication and constant movement. Customers want to develop a more personal relationship with brands and identify with the core values they represent — which is something company stories help with.

Educational Videos

Is education something you relate to fun, engaging content? Well, in the case of educational videos, it should be. They make excellent videos for sales by presenting helpful information to the audience in an engaging way.

They tend to use specific narrative resources such as a sharp script and compelling graphics to cover topics relevant to their target audience.

Educational content is crucial during the customer’s awareness phase. In this stage, they may not even know they have an issue that requires a solution, which gives you a great chance to step in to educate them.

In other words, you aim to stir their interest enough to encourage them to move further down the funnel. Also, educational videos help you provide valuable information clearly and precisely and establish a better relationship with potential customers.

Options for Creating Video For Sales

There are two ways you can create a video for sales — keep it in-house or outsource it to a video agency. Each of these options comes with advantages and disadvantages.

Keep It In-House

Advantages:

• It can be cheaper.
• Your team will know how videos fit into your general marketing plan (including colors, specific design features, and how you generally communicate with your audience).
• Your existing team will quickly understand the message you want to convey (they have a better understanding of the basic principles of your brand).

Disadvantages:

• You’ll have to invest in equipment (which isn’t always physical stuff, but apps or different video editing programs).
• Your employees may not be appropriately trained for creating top-notch videos.

Outsource A Video Agency

Advantages:

• You’re getting a professional team trained explicitly to create high-quality video content.
• Outsiders offer a fresh perspective and unique content that may expand your horizons.

Disadvantages:

• An agency may not be familiar with the specifics of your brand and how you communicate with your audience.
• They need to get to know you better to create content that will fit into your overall marketing strategy.

Maximize Sales With Hostdedi

Both research and praxis showed videos for sales are one of the lead trends in 2022. Now, since you’re about to invest in a new strategy for your marketing plan, the question remains — what’s the best platform to track sales?

Hostdedi’ fully-managed, high-performance digital cloud platforms offer a Sales Performance Monitor as part of its built-in testing features. It’s an intelligence engine that sends you alerts on sales trends, captures issues with payment processors or site slowness, and generally helps you measure your performance.

You can access the Sales Performance monitor and many other features through Hostdedi’ Managed WooCommerce Hosting plans. Sign up for a plan today.

Dropshipping is one of the simplest ways to make money online. You don’t have to manage inventory the same way a wholesaler would. So it’s pretty simple to earn a four-figure income with a dropshipping business.

But getting to six figures and beyond is a different ballgame.

Dropshipping is estimated to be worth $591 billion globally by 2027. So you need a recognizable, trusted dropshipping brand to establish yourself in a competitive market.

Most dropshippers begin small, but after some time, they must grow their dropshipping business to compete on a global scale with larger competitors.

Here are three tips that’ll help you grow your dropshipping business and compete with retail giants:

1. Invest in a High Converting Ecommerce Website

The success of a dropshipping business model depends on your ability to market and sell the best dropshipping products without storing them yourself.

That means the traditional brick-and-mortar business model is unsuitable for dropshipping. It only works if you have a great website to connect with dropshipping suppliers and customers.

The good news is that with so many ecommerce platforms to build your website, creating an online store is pretty simple.

Here’s what you need to build an ecommerce website:

• A good domain name.
• Web hosting.
• An ecommerce platform such as Shopify or AliExpress, ecommerce marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay, or a website builder such as Hostdedi’ StoreBuilder.
• A payment gateway.

A good ecommerce platform should make it easy to build your dropshipping store — from finding a domain name to installing marketing and sales plugins. It should also help you sell in multiple currencies and accept payments easily.

Make sure to include the following elements in your website:

Your dropshipping business will benefit significantly from digital marketing efforts like ecommerce email marketing. But it’s only valuable if you have an online store you can direct potential customers who see your dropshipping ads to.

2. Market Wisely

Driving traffic to your dropshipping store is critical to the growth and success of your online business. Most store owners work hard to create a perfect ecommerce store, only to launch it to an audience that has no idea it exists.

Start by figuring out the right traffic ecommerce channels for your website.

For example, there are 4.62 billion social media users globally. So having the right social media strategy will empower you to reach your target audience and boost your chances of having a successful dropshipping business.

While you shouldn’t market yourself on every online platform, a comprehensive marketing strategy will help grow your small business faster.

With that in mind, try out these three practical marketing tips:

• Run TikTok or Facebook Ads that suit your marketing budget and goals to drive traffic to your ecommerce store and increase sales.
• Leverage influencer marketing to grow your dropshipping business. Influencers usually have more sway over customer shopping decisions than any other channel. That’s why 54% of companies working with influencers have ecommerce stores.
• Focus on content marketing to engage and educate customers about your products. 82% of companies actively invest in content marketing, so you don’t want to be left behind. Concentrate on creating high-quality content to enhance customer experience and improve conversion rates.

3. Specialize in a Profitable Niche

Using a dropshipping business model isn’t straightforward. Most people think you simply add products to your online store, and customers flock to buy. But that’s not the case.

You should focus on a niche you’re genuinely interested in since a non-focused product selection will likely be difficult to promote. If you aren’t committed to the niche you choose, you’re more likely to fail since it takes a lot of hard work to grow an ecommerce business successfully.

Choosing a niche to sell in can make or break your dropshipping business. When scaling your business, consider avoiding these three types of products:

• Low-profit margin products: Don’t go after products everyone knows about since they come with fierce competition and low-profit margins. When pricing your dropshipping items, consider the product costs, shipping fees, possible refunds, and marketing and advertising expenses.
• Restricted products: These products aren’t illegal but have strict rules on selling them. They may also be legal in some areas but illegal in others, like cannabis. Such products may be appealing initially, especially if they have a high-profit margin and few people sell them. But selling these products can also limit your advertising and increase business risk due to their restrictive nature.
• Copyrighted products: You’re usually not allowed to sell these products unless authorized to do so — for example, t-shirts for a popular TV show.

Here are some pointers when selecting your niche:

• Make sure people are interested and actively looking for your product. Use search engine optimization (SEO) tools such as Ahrefs to check common search terms related to your potential niche. If no one is looking for what you want to sell, you’re out of luck before you even start.
• Select a niche with higher-priced products since the amount of work required to sell a $10 item is typically the same as selling a $1,500 item.
• Find a product that’s inexpensive to ship. It will enable you to offer free shipping to your customers, absorb that cost as a business expense, and attract more sales.

Final Thoughts: How To Grow Your Dropshipping Business in 2022 and Beyond

Whether you’re a new entrepreneur or seasoned business owner, a dropshipping business is a low-cost, low-risk way to start selling online.

You can scale your dropshipping business to a whole new level with a highly optimized ecommerce website, effective marketing strategies, and reliable suppliers. But it takes time and effort, so you have to be patient and work hard.

To start with the right foot, build a dropshipping ecommerce website with Hostdedi’ Storebuilder today.

We’ve all been spending more time online, especially during the past two years. You may have noticed that web aesthetics trends are taking cues from the early internet era.

Designers are sticking to classic website design principles, but they’re also going beyond standard website aesthetics — with a new spin on grids and lines, typography, and more. They use a lot of sophisticated textures, muted colors, and serif fonts, which is why websites don’t end up feeling too retro.

Futuristic web design also includes pretty innovative contemporary techniques such as advanced animations and interactions, together with visual effects — including grain and glassmorphism. Designers can do all this way easier and faster than ever before thanks to numerous available no-code tools.

Keep reading to learn about emerging website aesthetic trends in 2022.

What’s New For Sites?

An overarching trend in 2022’s website aesthetics is an increased sense of creativity, imagination, and playfulness. Designers are now creating sites as interactive projects, art, or simply to delight visitors. Here are some of the top trending website aesthetics you’ll see.

Trending Web Aesthetic Colors & Themes

1. Black & White

Already, it seems like one of the main website aesthetics trends is simple, clear, and plain. In other words, minimalistic characteristics are pushing busy websites to the side.

You’ll notice more and more sites with sophisticated effects and sleekness — it’s a smoother, less crowded, and more refined browsing experience. Black and white are a perfect combination to create a classy, yet intriguing, website.

2. Pop of Vivid Color

One of the reasons behind the minimalistic approach is that visitors won’t wait around for all your images, content, and slow-loading designs to load. Even though black and white can give you a sophisticated and minimalistic look, one of the best ways to get a “striking but simple” design is to include a pop of color.

For instance, go with earthy tones. Consider applying a combination of basic primary colors and nature-inspired tones. Or, consider red.

One of the colors you’ll be definitely seeing more of is red. People used to avoid red, since it can be hard on the eyes. But, similar to red lipstick, a red accent can be both subtle and striking enough to grab the user’s attention. If you experiment with tones and shades, you can easily incorporate red in unique ways that won’t look overwhelming.

3. Neo-Brutalism Theming

This is a theme with roots in an architectural movement of the 1950s–70s called brutalism, which used raw, exposed materials such as concrete. This movement has been getting more and more popular since it reappeared in the digital world in 2014, as documented on brutalistwebsites.com. It uses plain backgrounds, asymmetrical layouts, barebones unstyled HTML, and untreated photos.

4. Engaging Interactives

Many web designers are going back to large-scale animated interactions and bringing them to a whole new level in 2022. Such interactions go beyond scrolling to encourage visitors to engage with the page in a way they click, drag, and swipe the elements. This way, users can feel more investigative, since they actively dig through the page to uncover content.

5. Typographic Hero Images

Since the hero image is the first thing users see when coming to your website, you have to use something that will be presented in a simple way, but will also make a powerful statement.

Interactivity & Movement Website Aesthetics

6. Typefaces & Typography

Typography has evolved as well — the strict rules web designers once followed have given way to the mixing of fonts with photos, emojis, and different shapes. For instance, bold design is a trend for 2022 as well as typography of unusual size. When they get to a certain size, words are not just copy anymore — they become an engaging graphic element that represents your site.

Use your imagination, but carefully — something eccentric might create an eye-catching effect, but can also easily turn into irritating and unreadable graphics.

Another emerging website aesthetic is interactive fonts, where text moves and plays with the visitor’s mouse. A simple way to achieve this is to apply a hover-state change the same you’d do with a button.

It used to be harder to create this effect, since you had to write such interactions by hand, whereas today you can do it by using modern no-code platforms. However, when it comes to interactive fonts, keep in mind some users can get easily distracted by characters that move.

7. Scrolling Elements

Another emerging web aesthetic trend is horizontal scrolling. Designers didn’t start with it to stand out — it was simply an easier way to present the secondary information on the site. Horizontal scrolling looks like you’re going through the gallery and seeing the exposed content step by step as you scroll. Many users are still not used to it, which is why traditional (vertical) scrolling works just as well.

Website Aesthetics for Effects & Textures

8. 3D Illustrations

3D illustrations are an extremely popular website aesthetic trend. One of the coolest examples are 2D/3D mashups. The 2D design plays on old illustration styles, and the 3D spin makes it more interesting, eye-catchy, and life-like. An additional subtrend here is a 3D environment, where cutout 3D imitates a collage of 2D cutouts.

9. Glassmorphism

Glassmorphism is another website aesthetics trend that’s growing in popularity. It’s a UI design that emphasizes dark or light objects located on top of colorful backgrounds. Designers place a background blur on the objects, which is why the background shines through and eventually results in this frosted-glass effect. This is something that establishes verticality. It also emphasizes the depth of the design. Also, what’s cool about glassmorphism is that it looks like objects are floating in 3D space because they are blurred.

Inclusive Design Website Aesthetics

10. Cause-Based Elements

Many businesses tend to create their marketing campaigns and websites as if they were their own end-user. Since that’s almost never the case, many are paying more attention to inclusive design to ensure they don’t overlook the concerns or needs of certain groups that might visit their site.

Many websites are expanding their media, messaging, and design to account for a wider audience made up of various backgrounds including socio-economic classes, different age groups, sexual orientations, etc. For instance, the color blue is used for autism awareness, or rainbows for Pride Month.

11. Increased Accessibility Options

At its core, the web is designed for all people, whatever their location, language, hardware, software, or ability. The web generally removes barriers to interaction and communication many people with disabilities face in the real world. However, some apps, technologies, websites, or tools are not designed for a diverse range of movement, hearing, sight, or cognitive ability. That’s where accessibility comes in.

Accessibility is one of the vital factors for both companies and developers that want to create high-quality tools and sites, without excluding certain groups of people from using their services and products.

Choose a CMS that supports accessibility: When creating your site, use a content management system (CMS) that supports web accessibility. Make sure the themes, widgets, page layouts, plugins, and the rest of the factors of your site are compatible with web accessibility standards like WCAG 2.0.

Use more headers: When used properly, headers are a great tool you can structure and organize your content. With them, you allow your visitors to easily navigate through your website. This also boosts your SEO score, which means it will be easier for you to get more organic traffic.

Use alt tags for images: Even though images generally provide great value to users, they can also be a barrier for visitors with impaired or limited vision. Therefore, if you assign alt tags, your images will have a description that helps users to understand them using a screen reader. Alt tags also improve your SEO score.

Note: Be Careful With Colors

Colors can help a visitor differentiate the information on your website. Still, color blindness or other disabilities can make it difficult for users to find information, call-to-action buttons, or other elements when developers don’t pay enough attention to proper color contrasts. You can check the contrast of colors on your website simply by adding the Google Chrome extension.

Power Your Website With Fully Managed Hosting

What’s great about website aesthetics trends in 2022 is that there are many different practices you can combine together that will easily overlap and work just great.

To be creative and follow modern website design trends, you need proper tools and enough space where you can let your imagination run wild. A scalable plan, for instance, can get you more space as your website grows -— which is one of the things that make managed hosting solutions such a great choice.

In other words — when you have someone that will take care of the technical aspect of your website, it’s way easier to dedicate all your resources to create engaging, intriguing, and eye-catching content that will stand out in the crowd.

Check out fully managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting plans to get started today.

If you just launched your own website or online store, you have many options for hosting. It can be overwhelming and confusing when you’re just starting out. Below, we break down all the different types of web hosting for you to consider.

Different Types of Web Hosting

Web Hosting

First, you may be wondering exactly what is web hosting? Website hosting provides storage for and access to a website. Your site and all its files live on a server that’s managed by your web host. When you get visitors to your site, they request to see these files from the server. The server then sends the files to the visitor, and that’s how people get to see your website.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is another type of web hosting. So, what is shared hosting?

Shared hosting is a type of web hosting that allows you to share space on a server with other customers. Shared hosting is one of the most common types of web hosting available. Because you share server space with others, shared hosting usually costs less than other options.

Managed Hosting

Another type of web hosting is managed hosting. You may be wondering, what is managed hosting? Managed hosting is a type of web hosting where the provider takes care of the management, setup, administration, and overall support of a server. A managed hosting provider makes sure everything’s running smoothly. And they fix things that go wrong along the way.

WordPress Hosting

Another type of web hosting that’s platform specific is WordPress hosting. What is WordPress hosting and how does it differ from other hosting models?

WordPress hosting, as you may have guessed, provides storage and access to WordPress websites. There are many advantages of WordPress hosting. For example, WordPress hosting usually comes with 1-click installation, or even with the CMS already pre-installed.

WordPress is an open source platform. It’s free to use. So why do you need WordPress hosting? And is WordPress hosting worth it?

As with any website, you’ll need a host to power it behind the scenes. So yes, you do need WordPress hosting for your website. WordPress hosting is worth it because it is optimized specifically for WordPress websites, which means you’ll experience fast load times and high performance.

WooCommerce Hosting

What is managed WooCommerce hosting? Just like WordPress hosting is optimized for WordPress websites, WooCommerce hosting is optimized for fast ecommerce stores. WooCommerce hosting is specially set up for loading the contents of online stores and providing fast and secure user experiences for shoppers.

Shared Hosting vs. WordPress Hosting: What’s the Difference?

Shared hosting works with different applications, while WordPress hosting works just with WordPress. When it comes to shared hosting vs. WordPress hosting, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be on a shared WordPress hosting plan. Or, you could be on a managed WordPress hosting plan.

Considerations for Choosing a Web Host

Now that we’ve covered the different types of web hosting, this section will cover how to choose a web host. There are a number of questions to ask cloud hosting providers when vetting them.

Ultimately, your choice will come down to a number of factors, such as:

• Your platform.
• Your budget.
• Security requirements.
• Scalability.
• How much support you want.

There are also a number of red flags to look out for when choosing a host. For example, look out for fine print on “unlimited” or “unmetered” plans which have hidden caps on bandwidth. Cheap hosting plans can sometimes end up costing more than you expected, thanks for overage fees or other charges.

Moving Web Hosts

If you’re unhappy with your current host, you don’t have to stay. How do I switch web hosting?

Some web hosts will provide free migration services for you. Or, you may have to migrate yourself. Still, it’s easy to learn how to migrate a website from one host to another. And if you’re unhappy with the service you’ve received, it’s well worth the move.

Hosting Websites for Clients

If you’re a freelancer, you may be wondering how to host websites for clients. It only makes sense — you make and manage their site, and they don’t have to worry about anything. Plus, you can make some extra money on the side by joining a hosting affiliate program.

Add hosting to your contracts and proposals with new customers. The key here will be to choose a host that’s known for their support, performance, and uptime.

Consider Hosting With Hostdedi

Fully managed hosting from Hostdedi means you don’t need to worry about anything. With Hostdedi, you get:

• Automatic Updates — You won’t have to worry, we handle updates for you.
• No Hidden Fees or Metering — No surprise bills at the end of the month.
• Premium Features — Get built-in image compression, CDN, and advanced caching for lightning speed.
• Best-in-Class Support — Rely on our team of experts for 24/7/365 award-winning support.

Hostdedi offers:

View our hosting plans to get started today.

A podcast is one of the best ways to connect with your potential customers on a more personal level. Sound empowers people to hear the emotion behind the story you want to tell, which is why podcasts have grown rapidly over the years.

Podcasts are now a key part of many digital marketing strategies.

Want to learn how to get started podcasting and create a website for your podcast? Keep reading to learn:

What Are Podcasts?

In simple words, podcasts are like internet radio shows on demand. They are a form of streamable and downloadable audio content that has been extremely popular for the past few years. Topics range from cooking, narrative, and news to informative talks on almost any topic you can think of.

With many people having on-the-go lifestyles, podcasts are a perfect way for businesses to share their values, ideas, and story anywhere at any time. Starting a podcast can help your brand’s content, marketing, and lead generation efforts.

How To Start a Podcast, Step by Step

Here are a few quick steps to learn how to start your podcast.

Come Up With a Topic

First, make sure you spend a good amount of time choosing a topic that excites you and will keep you going for the long run. Narrow it down so you can target a more specific audience. For instance, don’t start an “outdoor” podcast — talk about hiking instead.

It’s easy to expand your topic later on in your podcast when you get more popular, but keep it brief when you’re starting. Also, pick a name broader than your topic so you can eventually expand on it later.

Tailor the Episode Length and Style

It’s high-quality content that attracts the listeners, not a strict timeline. Test it out and try different lengths, but also avoid making episodes longer than necessary (like going off-topic for 10-20 minutes).

One way you can tailor your episode length is to base it on how frequently you publish new episodes:

• If you publish on a daily basis, keep it snappy and short (e.g., 10 minutes).
• If you publish once or a few times a week, aim for the 30-50 minute mark.
• If you publish less frequently than that, your audience will generally be fine if you go more than an hour.

Style is another important factor you need to consider. Interview podcasts are popular, but that doesn’t mean you have to go with one. For instance, you can have co-hosted or solo shows in the episode’s first half and bring a featured guest in the second part.

What Equipment You’ll Need

The equipment you need depends on your goals and budget. You can even record episodes from your phone to start using recording apps like Podbean, Anchor, or Spreaker.

But if you’re serious about creating a podcast and want to give your users enjoyable and useful content, consider covering these basics:

• Desktop computer or laptop.
• A sound-proof recording space (or a distraction-free room).
• High-quality microphone.
• Noise-canceling headphones.
• Camera.
• Podcast recording software.

How To Find Guests

How to start a podcast and stay motivated? Find good guests that will share useful and interesting information on your topic:

• Search through similar podcasts: Listen to other podcasts with similar topics. If a guest was willing to come to a podcast before, they’ll probably agree to do so again. But don’t recreate an identical interview — do thorough research, find unique questions, and approach the same topics from a new angle.
• Don’t forget traditional media: Are there interesting people in radio, TV, newspapers, or magazines who might be relevant to your niche? Probably. Mining traditional media also gives you an opportunity to introduce great new guests an online audience may haven’t heard of yet.
• Find people who are selling something: Has your potential guest created a product related to your topic? If so, they might be interested in being on your show and presenting it to your audience (and potential buyers).

Making a Website for Your Podcast

Even though there are many different platforms where you can start your show (or you can craft the podcast website design yourself), WordPress is one of the best and simplest solutions.

Suitable for both amateurs and professionals, WordPress gives you total control over your content, a wide variety of helpful tools, fully flexible customization, and many other features.

Choose the Right Hosting Provider

Start by opening an account with a hosting service. This is the company that will keep your online files stored and available for your visitors.

Unlike a blog post, you can’t just upload your podcast on a website — that’s a hosted audio file, not a podcast. Podcasters mostly use external file hosting services designed for the specific purposes of their show.

Podcast files aren’t small, so they might burn through your WordPress hosting account’s bandwidth.

Install WordPress

Why WordPress? It’s a flexible tool where you don’t need advanced technical knowledge to build your website. It’s open source, which makes it free to use — plus, it offers many additional features that expand its functionality.

In most cases, you can install WordPress with the click of a button, or you can install it manually in a couple of seconds.

Choose a WordPress Theme

A theme is a group of template files that dictates the appearance of your site. A podcast website for WordPress offers a wide variety of different themes, but it would be better to stick to those specifically intended for podcast website design.

To install a theme, go to your WordPress dashboard and find Appearances > Themes. Click Add New/Upload Theme, and find the theme files you want to add.

Install Plugins

Plugins are a great way to extend your site’s functionality. Many of them are free and easy to install.

Seriously Simple Podcasting (SSP) is one of the most full-featured podcasting plugins you’ll find. It saves you the time and hassle of toggling between different platforms because you can upload your audio files directly on the WordPress dashboard.

With SSP, you get integrated statistics, an audio player, a convenient workflow, search engine optimization (SEO) management, and other add ons.

SSP isn’t the only useful WordPress podcast plugin. Here are some others:

• CSS Hero: Offers CSS customizations without coding.
• Yoast SEO: Optimizes your pages for search.
• Jetpack: Offers many features, such as security defenses, sharing tools, and SEO tools.
• Akismet: Reduces spam comments.
• W3 Total Cache: Improves overall website performance.

Customize Your Podcast Site

There are many ways to customize your website. WordPress is versatile, so you can play around with layouts, colors, fonts, and other features that define your visual identity.

• Work on the essential pages: Every site needs a few essential pages, such as an about page (description of your podcast), a contact page (social media profiles, email address, contact form), and a blog (where WordPress will display your latest posts).
• Configure a lead capture tool: Building an email list is a great way to let your followers know a new episode is out. To grow your list, you can use a lead capture tool like OptinMonster.

Add opt-in forms throughout your entire site to remind your visitors to submit their email addresses. You can start by placing them in the footer, sidebar, or bottom of each episode.

Integrate your lead generation tool with your email service provider. That will help you keep the addresses you’ve collected in one place.

Podcast Website Examples

Here are some podcast website examples for inspiration:

The WPMRR WordPress Podcast

Joe Howard and Christie Chirinos may have started this casual project for fun, but the WPMRR WordPress podcast quickly became one of the most popular podcasts in the WordPress niche.

WPMRR offers excellent advice for writers, maintenance professionals, WordPress developers, consultants, and designers. The podcast features professionals whose experiences can help anyone running a WordPress-based business who wants to bring it to the next level.

Ideas to check out:

• Descriptive labels about the current topic and attractive thumbnails with Joe and the starring guest.
• Easy-to-click links to platforms where visitors can find your podcast.
• Search bar to easily navigate through the site.

The Cliff Ravenscraft Podcast

If you want to learn how to start a podcast and keep your work high-quality, watch the Cliff Ravenscraft podcast.

Ravenscraft has 30+ podcast shows and over 3,600 episodes devoted to topics like tech, business, entertainment, faith, and family. He also sells guides, tutorials, and equipment, which is how he turned his site into a true business-attracting engine.

Ideas to check out:

• Clean, intuitive, and fast-loading website.
• Eye-catching call to action (CTA).
• Lead magnet to collect visitors’ email addresses.

The Smarter Sales Show Podcast

Just one look on the Smarter Sales Show tells you it’s a podcast by two women who share sales-related advice. Visitors don’t even have to read episode summaries to understand what it’s about.

The color scheme is a cheerful mix of white, yellow, and orange, which gives the podcast an inviting look. You can also see an eye-catching animation across the homepage, along with a subscribe button under the header.

This site features just one episode on the homepage, but you can display more by clicking the “Check out more episodes” CTA.

Ideas to check out:

• Hosts’ biographies provide credibility to the podcast.
• Opt-in forms are located towards the footer.
• Simple and fun animations are always effective (in moderation).

Great Idea, What’s Next?

You technically don’t need a website for your podcast. Still, it has many benefits, and here are some:

• Discoverability: The easier it is for your potential audience to find your content, the more new subscribers you’ll get.
• Content ownership: If you have a site for your podcast, your visitors will have just one place where they can search through each episode, share your project with others, and learn more about you.
• Added value: Every time you publish something new, you can add a blog post or accompanying resource. Google will then pick up your blog posts, attracting new visitors.

Building your own website is one of the key steps in your marketing strategy, especially if you want to start a podcast. Your website is where you can represent your business, unique ideas, fresh content, and updates related to your project.

The key factor to launch your WordPress site is your host. Hostdedi offers scalable hosting packages you can adjust to your business needs and cover all the technical aspects as it grows.

Check out Hostdedi’ Fully Managed WordPress Hosting to get started with your podcast website today.

Research by Valassis reveals that coupon redemption in Q2 2021 grew by 27.8% compared to the same period in 2020. Coupons and customized pricing offer a great way to leverage this demand. They help you attract first-time buyers and increase conversions.

If you’re looking for ways to breathe new life into your online sales, Magento 2 cart price rules and catalog price rules are the best way to do it.

Curious to learn how?

Here’s what we’ll cover:

How To Create Magento 2 Cart Price Rules

Magento 2 cart price rules help you offer discounts in the shopping cart using a set of conditions. Here’s how you can configure them in five simple steps.

Step 1: Create a New Rule

Navigate to Marketing > Promotions > Cart Price Rules in the Magento admin panel and click on the Add New Rule button.

On the New Cart Price Rule page, configure the following settings in the Rule Information section:

1. Rule Name: Enter a descriptive name.

2. Active: Set the toggle to No.

3. Websites: Select websites to apply the price rule.

4. Customer Groups: Select the customer groups to apply the Magento shopping cart rule.

5. Coupon: Select No Coupon to apply the price rule without a coupon code. To mandate using a coupon during checkout, choose Specific Coupon, enter a coupon code, and the maximum number of times customers can use it.

6. Uses per Customer: Set the per-customer usage limit for the Magento 2 cart price rule (enforced for logged-in customers only).

7. From and To: Set a date range for the price rule.

8. Priority: Set the priority for the price rule.

9. Public In RSS Feed: To publish the price rule to your RSS feed, set this to Yes.

Step 2: Define the Price Rule Conditions

Scroll down to the Conditions section. The default condition states, “If ALL of these conditions are TRUE.” However, you can configure the two bold values, ALL and TRUE, to ANY and FALSE to set custom conditions.

Click the green-colored plus icon to start adding the conditions. You’ll see a dropdown with several options, such as cart attribute and conditions combination. We’ll configure a discount using one of the Cart Attribute options for this tutorial.

Select Cart Attribute > Subtotal (Excl. Tax) from the dropdown. The condition appears as Subtotal (Excl. Tax) is … on a new line.

Click is and choose equals or greater than from the dropdown menu.

Click the bold ellipses and enter the subtotal amount (excluding tax) beyond which you’d like to offer a discount on the retail price.

You can add more conditions using the green plus icon and delete conditions using the red cross icon to offer advanced pricing discounts.

Step 3: Configure the Actions

Expand the Actions section and configure the following settings:

1. Apply: Set this to one of the four available options.

2. Discount Amount: Enter the discount price.

3. Apply to Shipping Amount: Set this to No to apply the discount on the subtotal.

4. Discard subsequent rules: Set this to Yes to prevent further discount rules from being processed.

Optionally, you can also configure additional options to apply Magento 2 cart price rules on products that meet specific criteria.

Step 4: Configure the Labels

Expand the Labels section and enter a descriptive name for the discount in the Default Rule Label for All Store Views text area. Your customers will see this value when the discount applies to their cart.

If you’re using a multi-store setup, you can configure the value for each store in the Store View Specific Labels section.

Step 5: Save the Rule

Scroll to the top, switch the Active toggle to Yes, and click Save to finish creating the shopping cart price rule.

How To Create Magento 2 Catalog Price Rules

In contrast to Magento 2 cart price rules, catalog price rules help you offer discounts at the catalog level, i.e., before customers add products to the shopping cart. Here’s how you can configure them.

Step 1: Create a New Rule

Go to Marketing > Promotions > Catalog Price Rule in the Magento admin and click Add New Rule.

On the New Catalog Price Rule page, configure the following settings in the Rule Information section:

1. Rule Name: Enter a name.

2. Active: Set the toggle to No.

3. Websites: Assign the price rule to your websites.

4. Customer Groups: Choose which customer groups the price rule will apply to.

5. From and To: Set the catalog price rules schedule.

6. Priority: Set the priority for the rule.

Step 2: Set the Conditions

Expand the Conditions sections and click the plus icon to start adding the first condition. From the dropdown menu, select a Product Attribute such as Color, Size, or Attribute Set for the condition. For example, if you choose Color, you’ll see the condition listed as “Color is …” on a new line.

Click the bold ellipses and select a color from the dropdown menu.

You can also click is and choose a different option to exclude a color or product attribute. This option can be used to offer discounts on selective child products of a Magento 2 configurable product.

Repeat the process to create a combination of conditions using the green plus icon.

Step 3: Configure the Actions

Expand the Actions section and configure the following settings:

1. Apply: Select how you wish to apply the discount. What you choose here determines the behavior of the next option.

2. Discount Amount: Enter a numerical value here without using any special characters. If you’ve selected a percentage option in the previous step, this will apply as a percentage. If you’ve chosen a fixed amount, this will apply as a fixed amount discount.

3. Discard subsequent rules: Set this to No to prevent further processing of discounts. Alternatively, set it to Yes to allow multiple discounts.

Step 4: Save the Rule

Scroll to the top, set the Active toggle to Yes, and click Save.

Final Thoughts: Magento 2 Cart Price Rules and Catalog Price Rules

Magento 2 cart price rules can help you reduce cart abandonment with targeted discounts. Similarly, catalog price rules in Magento can help you increase the average order value and offer custom pricing to different customer groups.

If you notice a drop in your store performance after implementing price rules, it’s possible that your hosting isn’t optimized for Magento 2. You can try limiting price rules to up to 5 rules per product category to improve Magento performance.

Better yet, migrate to Managed Magento Hosting by Hostdedi. You’ll have access to performance-optimized servers that help you run a Magento store without compromise.

Browse our plans to get started today.